by Dudley Pope
“Exactly! How many masters in the service use gold and silver as ballast?”
Southwick grinned delightedly. “Good Heavens, I didn’t think of it that way! I’ll put it in the log—’Shifted so-and-so tons of Spanish doubloons to trim the ship.’ That’ll make a good yarn to tell in Portsmouth!”
By ten o’clock La Perla had passed out through the entrance, eased sheets for the reach along the edge of the reefs down to Punta del Soldado at the south-western corner of the island, and rounded it to bear away before a soldier’s wind.
To the westward, Puerto Rico was shimmering in the heat with the island of Vieques a long, low shape to the south-west. If Snake Island, Vieques and Puerto Rico formed three sides of a square, the fourth was made up of an almost impassable barrier of small cays stretching in a long line between the northern ends of Puerto Rico and Snake Island.
Without the Spanish charts Ramage could not have risked the passage between Vieques and the cays, but he guessed La Perla would use that channel on her way to Ponce, and to pass south of Vieques might arouse suspicion.
The sun, climbing high now, would be almost directly overhead in a couple of hours. Streaks of pale green, and brown marks in the sea—like dirty fingermarks on a bright-blue enamel dish—showed where reefs lay just below the surface waiting to rip the bottom out of an unwary ship. Some of the shoals rose above the surface to expose coral whitening in the sun, making islets for the dozens of solemn and dignified pelicans soaring, diving lazily, or watching indifferently as La Perla passed within a few hundred yards.
“Feels strange, doesn’t it?” Ramage commented to Yorke, nodding towards the Spanish ensign.
“It certainly does. A trifle florid, isn’t it?”
The horizontal stripes of red, gold and red were rarely seen at sea by British eyes.
“It’s legal, I assume?” Yorke asked. “I mean, if we get taken by a Spanish ship of the line, we won’t be hanged as freebooters or pirates or anything?”
“Perfectly legal,” Ramage said. “You have to hoist your own flag before you open fire on someone, that’s all.”
“Barbarous!” Yorke said with a shudder.
“You’re looking at it only from the point of view of a potential victim.”
“True enough; I was born a potential victim.”
“It looks different if you use it as a trick to capture a prize.”
“I’m a peace-loving man,” Yorke said. “With an inborn respect for flags.”
“So am I,” Ramage said blandly. “I just don’t believe everything I see!”
By late afternoon La Perla was passing through the channel between Vieques and the south-east corner of Puerto Rico. Punta Tuna on the starboard bow was the last piece of high land they would see until they had passed westward along the length of Puerto Rico and crossed the Mona Passage to sight the eastern end of Hispaniola.
Just before darkness Ramage searched the horizon with his telescope. There were no sails in sight. Lookouts along the coast should be quite happy: La Perla had left Snake Island according to schedule, making for Ponce. What they would not know was that the schooner would pass Ponce in the darkness, and unless the wind dropped away in the night, would be beyond Puerto Rico and out of sight by sunrise.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RAMAGE always found Jamaica one of the most exciting of tropical landfalls, with the peaks of the aptly named Blue Mountains showing up fifty miles away. They were sighted low on the western horizon just before sunset on the fifth day.
Responsibility for the safety of a small schooner with important passengers and laden with a king’s ransom in treasure meant that Ramage, Southwick and Yorke did not have more than two hours’ uninterrupted sleep after leaving Snake Island. Once across the Mona Passage, with Hispaniola a few miles on the starboard beam, the lookouts had done little else than hail “Deck there!” and report a sail in sight.
Each time Ramage had to thrust aside his training as a naval officer and try to think with the mind of the fictitious Spanish captain that he had become. If anyone boarded them he had to remember that he was ostensibly on passage from Puerto Rico to Havana, Cuba, with provisions for Havana’s garrison and seamen intended for a frigate being commissioned there. It sounded likely, and only four ships had inquired—one Spanish, and two French privateers, and a French national sloop. Ramage was thankful not to have sighted a British frigate; he was in no mood to be delayed while he tried to persuade some sceptical post captain of the truth of his improbable story.
He had ordered Southwick to reduce sail for the rest of the night to ensure that they arrived off Morant Point, at the eastern end of Jamaica, soon after dawn.
The St Brieucs were on deck at sunrise, eager for their first good look at the island they had many times despaired of ever seeing, and Maxine’s excitement was catching. “It is so green—and so mountainous!” she exclaimed to Ramage.
“When Columbus was describing it to Queen Isabella, he crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it on the table.”
“Where is Port Royal?” she asked.
“Just to the right of the highest peak. But there’s not much of it left after an earthquake and a hurricane. Kingston is the main harbour now.”
By nine o’clock, Southwick came down to Ramage’s cabin to report that he could just distinguish the eastern end of the Palisadoes, and Ramage went on deck to find Yorke helping Maxine with a telescope and trying to tell her what to look for.
“You see how the land runs east and then curves south?” Ramage said. “Well, Kingston is in the elbow. The Palisadoes is a long spit running parallel with the land like a trigger, with Port
Royal and the entrance to Kingston Harbour at the tip.”
“Towns!” Maxine said contemptuously. “You talk of towns, with all this to look at? Just look at those mountains! And the mist in the valleys. It’s magical!”
Yorke grimaced at Ramage as Maxine moved the telescope to range over the rest of the island.
“Just look!” Maxine said excitedly. “All the little ships—and canoes close to the beach.”
“Local fishermen,” Yorke murmured.
“All the houses with pointed roofs!”
“Cattle mills,” Ramage said. “They use cattle to work the machinery to make sugar.”
“And tall chimneys with smoke coming out of them!”
“The chimneys of the boiling houses,” Ramage said.
“What are they boiling?”
“The sugar cane. Extracting the molasses.”
“Tell me how they make sugar,” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” Ramage said firmly. “All I do know is it makes a terrible smell.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Southwick, “but I can’t make out the pilot schooner—permission to fire a gun?”
Ramage nodded: both inshore and ahead of La Perla there were now a dozen or more vessels, ranging from small droggers bringing cargoes of sugar, molasses and rum into Kingston from a dozen coves and bays round the coast, to large schooners arriving from many different countries.
As soon as the gun boomed out, they saw a schooner close inshore suddenly making sail and then heading towards them.
“Ha! They take their time,” Southwick grumbled.
“Don’t forget La Perla isn’t one of the King’s ships,” Ramage said. “As far as they’re concerned she’s just another little schooner with heavily-patched sails.”
“Wait till they see that!” Southwick said, gesturing to the British flag that now streamed out above the Spanish, indicating that she was a prize.
“The pilot won’t be impressed,” Ramage said. “He’ll have seen too many captured ships of the line brought in.”
Ten minutes later both La Perla and the pilot schooner were lying hove-to as a small canoe brought the pilot on board. As he watched, Ramage thought for the first time in many hours of the problems that probably awaited him in Kingston.
First, the hunt for the treasure, then the reception
of La Perla, and finally the voyage itself, had given him other things to think about. Now he had to face the fact that Rear-Admiral Goddard was probably in Kingston. A ship of the line like the Lion, if properly handled, should survive a hurricane. By now, though, the Admiral might well have given up hope that Ramage had survived to face whatever had been prepared for him.
The pilot scrambling nimbly on board was a muscular young Negro dressed in white canvas trousers, a gaudy blue and yellow shirt and a narrow-brimmed straw hat which many coats of black varnish had made as a rigid as a cast-iron cooking pot.
He stared at the British flag over the Spanish ensign and looked slowly round La Perla.
“Come on, Blackie!” Southwick said impatiently.
“Harry Wilson, if you please, sah.”
The Master sniffed. “Very well, Harry Wilson, as soon as your canoe is clear of our bow we’re getting under way again.”
The man sniffed in turn, implying that his talents were wasted on such a small vessel.
“A nice little ship,” he said conversationally to Ramage, who had not yet changed back into uniform. He caught sight of Maxine, raised his hat and gave a deep bow. He then turned back to Southwick. “A sound little ship. You must have a nice captain to send you off in command of the prize crew.”
Ramage looked steadily at Southwick, defying him to squash the pilot.
Getting no reaction from Southwick, Wilson turned to Ramage. “Who is she prize to?”
“The Triton brig.”
“No trouble finding a buyer here; she’s a nice size. A schooner like this sold a month ago for fifteen hundred pounds.”
“Good, we can do with the money,” Ramage said as Southwick relieved his annoyance by bellowing the orders that got La Perla under way again.
Yorke had been standing by the taffrail. He was no stranger to Kingston and was finding it pleasant watching and knowing the navigation of the ship was no responsibility of his.
The pilot glanced at both Ramage and Yorke once or twice, obviously puzzled. He recognized the bearing of an officer, but the only man on deck wearing a uniform was Southwick.
“You know Kingston?” the pilot asked Ramage.
“No.”
He had been in and out several times when he was a young midshipman, but did anyone really know Kingston? The life in the big houses was considerably more luxurious than that in the great houses in London, since few people in England could afford such an army of servants. But what was life like in the tiny shacks in the mountains, where the thumping of voodoo drums was as commonplace as the sound of tree frogs?
“These batteries,” the pilot said, pointing to the harbour entrance. “Blow you out of the water! Boom boom—then no more of your little ship.”
“You’re safe enough here,” Ramage said in a suitably awed voice.
“We need them!” the pilot said, peering over the side at the shoal only twenty yards to windward. “Privateers … the Spanish at Cuba … just pirates. Channel narrow here—you wouldn’t get far without a pilot, mister.”
He pointed to the land on the starboard side and the dozens of cays and reefs on the larboard bow. Apart from an occasional almost casual direction to Southwick, Wilson then lapsed into a sulky silence and Ramage walked back to join Yorke at the taffrail.
The Palisadoes, with the harbour and town of Kingston behind it, was now abeam as La Perla sailed along parallel with the shore and a mile off. Half an hour later as the pilot gave directions for the schooner to turn north to anchor off Port Royal, Ramage signalled to Southwick that he would take the conn. At the same time, Yorke began to point out various sights to Maxine.
“The remains of Port Royal,” he said, pointing to the western end of the Palisadoes. “You see the hill on the side? The big battery up there is called the Twelve Apostles. Now—it’s just coming clear of the point—you can see Fort Charles: the low red brick walls are all that’s left. And beyond—Gallows Point!”
Maxine shuddered.
“You’ll see the bodies still hanging from the gallows—mutineers from the Hermione frigate!”
“Mon Dieu! How long have they been there?”
“A year or two. They’re wrapped in chains, a warning to other seamen …”
Southwick was on the foredeck making sure everything was ready for anchoring, and Yorke excused himself and walked over to Ramage.
“Everyone with a telescope is watching us by now,” he said quietly.
Ramage nodded. “And they won’t make head or tail of it!”
“Just another prize sent in by a frigate?”
“Yes—the only interest will be in guessing how much she’ll fetch.”
By now the pilot was standing by the main chains, apparently in a huff, so no one could hear them talk.
“M’sieur St Brieuc was right,” Yorke said quietly. “You are going to take his advice, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so,” Ramage said reluctantly. “I haven’t really made up my mind.”
“You’re leaving it rather late!”
“I know,” Ramage said glumly. “I hate getting them involved in this sort of nonsense.”
“Involved? See here, Ramage!” Ramage was startled by the harsh note in Yorke’s voice, “They owe their lives to you.” He held up a hand to silence Ramage’s protest. “That’s a fact.
Certainly once, with the Peacock attack, and probably twice, getting us all ashore at Snake Island and then to Jamaica!”
Ramage shrugged his shoulders, but Yorke persisted. “Anyway, he’s going to involve himself, whether you agree or not. If you were simply a lieutenant with no problems he’d be grateful and want to show it. He’s doing no more because it’s you.”
“All right!” Ramage said wearily, “I’ll do as he says. I appreciate his suggestion.”
“Is your report all ready?”
“Dozens of reports,” Ramage said sourly. “I seem to have been scribbling ever since we passed Puerto Rico. There’s a lot to be said for losing your ship and escaping in an open boat—you don’t have pen and paper, then.”
Yorke laughed. “The Navy floats in ink, and ships are built of paper.”
“And their guns fire broadsides of pens,” Ramage added. “So M’sieur St Brieuc will keep out of sight until tomorrow,” Yorke said as a statement of fact.
“I suppose that’s all right,” Ramage said doubtfully. “This damned protocol. Who does he report to, anyway?”
“The Lieutenant Governor. His letters are addressed to him.” Ramage gave a sigh of relief. “That’s a help. I should have guessed that.”
“What do you do now?” Yorke asked.
“As soon as we anchor and clear Customs here at Port Royal—the manifest won’t mention the bullion—we’ll shift into Kingston and I’ll go on shore and report to the Commander-in-Chief if Goddard isn’t there.”
The two men stood looking round them as La Perla completed the last few hundred yards into the anchorage, and then Ramage saw Jackson running aft along the deck towards him.
“The Lion’s here, sir!”
Ramage looked in the direction the American was pointing. She was little more than a hulk in Kingston harbour, and partly hidden by merchantmen. There was a lighter each side of her, and only her mainmast was standing.
Ramage put his telescope to his eye and the circular magnified picture revealed the story. “Foremast and mizen gone by the board,” Ramage said loudly, knowing that every man on board was curious. “Mainmast fished in two places. Bulwarks stove in on both sides. Jib-boom gone, and the bowsprit fished. Several port lids torn off.”
Yorke grunted. “We weren’t the only ones in trouble, then!” Then Ramage saw the stream of water frothing across the deck and over the side.
“And leaking badly, they’re pumping.”
“Flag, sir?” Jackson asked.
“No—the Admiral must be on shore.”
“No sign of the others, sir,” Jackson said quietly.
Ramage swung the tel
escope round the anchorage to confirm that there was no sign of the three frigates and the Lark lugger that had formed the escort.
Ramage shut the telescope. He’d never recognize the merchantmen and he would know soon enough how many had survived when he went on shore.
At least he didn’t have to alter the address on his reports. He had made them to Rear-Admiral Goddard, but he’d hoped … Anyway, instead of reporting to the Commander-in-Chief, he had to report to the Rear-Admiral, the new “second-in-command of His Majesty’s ships and vessels … at and about, Jamaica.”
After the customs officers cleared La Perla at Port Royal, Ramage took the schooner round Gallows Point, at the end of the Palisadoes, and beat up through the ships anchored in Kingston Harbour.
“One thing about coming in with a ship like this,” Southwick commented. “You can choose where to anchor, instead of being ordered to a particular berth!”
Ramage nodded. He was anxious to anchor abreast of the town of Kingston, since La Perla’s boat was too small to make a two-mile row anything less than a test of endurance.
Yorke examined the Lion carefully through a telescope as the schooner tacked across her stern.
“She was lucky to get in,” he commented. “I’ll bet there are ten men at the pumps night and day.”
As soon as La Perla luffed up and anchored, she was surrounded by bumboats, each improbably named and gaudily painted with sails made of sacking and pieces of canvas crudely sewn to shape. Each was manned by an energetic and flamboyant Negro shouting at the top of his voice, anxious to carry the Captain on shore or bring out supplies. While the schooner’s sails were being furled, the bumboatmen were yelling to Southwick—apparently assuming that because of his bulk he was the purser—and giving him a string of prices for everything a ship and her crew could possibly need, from fresh fruit to women.
When they saw La Perla’s boat being hoisted out they groaned with pretended dismay and then began describing the superior speed, safety and comfort of their respective craft.
Ramage went below to the tiny cuddy he shared with Yorke and changed into one of his best uniforms. By the time he had dressed he was soaked with perspiration—there was barely room to crouch in the cuddy, let alone stand up. Giving his stock a last twitch to straighten it, he picked up his sword, his best hat and the heavily-stitched canvas pouch containing his reports.